dating column

55. Curve appeal

How do you feel about your body? Everything dandy? Tickety boo? Do you wake up in the morning, run to the mirror and think phwoar, that is one hot piece of ass? No? Thought not.

We as a society have a serious problem: we are obsessed with telling people what beautiful looks like. In the renaissance days it used to be women with fuller figures, then we hit the Marilyn era and sizes started to plummet. Now it’s all thigh gaps and clavicles and walking around swaddled in guilt staring longingly at doughnuts.

Bigger is better in so many other aspects of life: bouquets, puddings, diamonds, houses, profit margins: I WANT THE BIGGEST YACHT the rich man roared, whilst his deathly thin wife counted peas onto a plate.

But when it comes to weight; starving, poking, prodding, hating, judging and crying quietly in front of mirrors is de rigeur. I have no time for it. None. In fact, I think we could all do with some time back from the purveyors of this filth. Did you hear that, you bastards? GIVE IT BACK.

Somehow the message that beautiful equals thin has completely passed me by. I don’t get it. I couldn’t give two hoots about the squishy bits, the bobbly bits and knobbly bits. I rather love a fudgey tummy, wobbling like jelly beneath my lips. There’s something wonderful and sexy and grown up and real about a woman with serious curves.

I meet the Thai at speed dating. The other women are lovely, but she has a spark that makes my ears, eyes and knickers prick up. She’s also as silky and voluptuous as a scoop of clotted cream – I’d guess a size 16 to 18. She sits down and says, “I work for Orange Is The New Black and I think you’re beautiful.” As opening lines go, it’s a corker. Our 4 minutes fly by in a storm of banter. I know I want to see her again.

For our first proper date, we meet for cocktails in a bar in the bowels of London. We wobble out a couple of hours later and head to another bar where she plonks cosmos in front of me with a flourish.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“Definitely,” she winks.

An hour later, a man slides in next to me.

“Do you love her?” he blasts in my date’s face with a beery pong.

“Given it’s the first date, probably not, no.”

“Don’t worry,” he charges on “when it’s love, looks don’t matter.”

At first I don’t realise what he’s getting at. Just another drunk man spouting bollocks I shrug. But then, as he keeps harping on about how looks don’t matter and love is all you need I realise: this is about my date’s weight. And suddenly I’m furious. For barging in on our night. For thinking he has the right to an opinion. For being fantastically rude. And for smelling like a toilet.

She handles it magnificently, of course: “I’m punching, I know. I’m punching massively,” she laughs. I want to punch him.

Instead we finish our drinks and head to the station. There, I pull her into a kiss and feel an answering purr deep inside, a thick longing in my knickers like jam.

That’s the thing about attraction. People can say whatever they like. They can try and dictate what’s desirable. They can even try and shame us for being who we are. But when it comes to lust, happily, those lips don’t lie.